


and i cannot see the flowers at my feet

by melonbones



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Angst, Character Study, Dissociation, Fluff, Injury Recovery, M/M, Na Jaemin-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:00:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24373174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melonbones/pseuds/melonbones
Summary: A race, a car going 140, something out of the corner of his eye, and whoop! There goes Jaemin! Put him in some rice, maybe he’ll feel better soon. Or not. It depends. Don't ask Donghyuck, though, or Renjun, and definitely don't ask Jeno. He'll just start crying.(There is a crash. Just one. But it feels likeeverythingkeeps crashing, after that.)
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 21
Kudos: 111





	and i cannot see the flowers at my feet

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings for:** suicidal ideation / death-y thoughts, character injury & recovery, temporary character blindness, mentions of drowning, a character dissociating episodically, a character vomiting once

It happens in seconds.

Jaemin pulls around the bend going 140 and clutch kicks the car into an easy drift. It’s lazy and effortless but clean and fast, gets the job done. Jeno could’ve done it sexier, probably, but he’s not Jeno. Jeno wouldn’t be racing. Not now, not today. Not when the roads are still slick with rain. 

The car slides through the arc and Jaemin draws it back just as the road begins to straighten out. The finish line is just on the horizon, glittering with a neon haze. Jaemin’s pulse jumps, his grip on the wheel tightening white-knuckled, and he floors it. 

All he can think about is winning. All he can focus on is the end.

Then—

Something out of the corner of his eye. Too fast for a reaction, to swerve out of the way. Too fast for fear to set in. There’s just—pain. So much of it he can’t hear. So much of it he can’t _breathe._ Whiplash. 100 to 0 in less than second. The sky falling and crumbling all around him. He can’t move. He can’t breathe. He can’t see. Why can’t he see? Where has all the light gone? Why can’t he _see?_ Why can’t he—

Jaemin loses his eyes in the crash. He breaks his arm but that can be put in a cast and fixed. He gives himself a coma but even that melts away eventually. But his _eyes._ Those are his mother’s, and his grandmother’s, and someone else’s before her. And Jaemin just… loses them. Pops them out like a plug from a socket and lets them roll down the road where they crunch under the boot of some fucking hedge fund manager. _Christ._

Waking up isn’t easy; he isn’t sure what is real and what isn’t. Everything is dark and hurts too much and there’s a hand in his hair and he thinks it’s meant to be comforting but it’s just obnoxious and he wants it to stop, wants everything to stop, it’s all just a bit too—

It stops. It always does. Quick days of stopping and starting, of shutting him down like a fucking computer. Press a button and whoop, there goes Jaemin! Put him in some rice, maybe he’ll feel better soon. 

Donghyuck deals with the medical side of his surgery and Renjun deals with the bionic part. Jaemin only knows there _is_ a bionic part because he can hear the familiar clink of Renjun’s tools and the clack of his computer. He wonders what they’re putting inside of him. A titanium hip would be funny, he thinks. 

He wants to ask what they’re doing to him but he can’t. He drifts in and out of consciousness, and when he tries to open his mouth all that comes out is little bubbles of pain. He’s leaking it from every pore. Wonders if it’s visible, if it’s the black, oily mess that it feels like inside of his heart. What’s the melting point of pain, he wonders? If they were to just cremate him now—which they should, Jaemin thinks. It would get everything over with very quickly because face it, he’s going to die here, wherever he is (he wishes he could know—wishes he could _see)._ If they were to cremate him, what would be left behind? Not his eyes, that’s for sure. Not his skeleton either, except for maybe the titanium hip.

The answer doesn’t matter. Not really. Jaemin can only think in puzzle pieces these days, each thought messily slotted into the last. There’s no real big picture. There just _is._

Donghyuck saying, “Man, his fucking femur’s fucking fu—”

Renjun saying, “We should bathe him. We should, right? Jeno, you—”

Someone crying. Jisung? Jeno? Both? Is it selfish to want it to be both of them? No. It’s selfish to want it to be any of them. Nobody should be crying over him. There’s new pain, now, something like sorrow and regret, and he just wishes he hadn’t raced, that he listened to Jeno, that—

Donghyuck saying again, “His _femur,_ man, it’s like _cereal—”_

A washcloth on his forehead, cool and calming and _wet._ A bead of water dribbling across his forehead, the side of his neck, sneaking under his collar. The bandages on his eyes soaking through. When was the last time it rained? He misses the feeling of the air against his skin, misses the sunlight, misses seeing—

Jeno saying, “You’re doing so well, Jaemin. Donghyuck says you’ll wake up soon. Sometimes I think you’re really awake and that you’re listening. Jisung came to visit the other day, did you know that? He cried over your face and got some snot on your cheek, and you honest-to-god frowned, and—”

He wiggles his toes. Donghyuck has been tickling them lately while he’s been working on something down there. It occurs to him that he can feel the friction of Donghyuck’s denim jacket against his skin, and so Jaemin moves his toes, and man. Maybe it was a waste to use up all his energy on his big toe. He could’ve tried something else, like opening his eyes, like—

Awareness comes to him slowly. There’s a distant hum in the background and his body is sluggish as though weighed down and melted to the ground. There’s still pain but it has faded to a dull ache now, sharp at times when he moves just wrong, but he can live with it. He thinks. This is all so new to him. 

It’s still hard to speak with his throat all dusty but thinking is easier: his thoughts don’t scatter anymore. He finds himself thinking about everything and nothing all at once. He thinks of the race, replaying those final moments again and again, wondering what he could have done differently. He thinks of Donghyuck and how he’s pieced Jaemin back together, and he thinks of Renjun, and how he’s helped. Thinks of Jisung and the snot he’s shed, and he thinks of Jeno and then tries not to think about him at all. It hurts. He wishes it didn’t. The pain is brighter now that there isn’t anything to drown it out. 

Jaemin tries to cry, that day. He discovers very quickly that he can’t. 

“Do you think you can sit up?”

Donghyuck has got a hand tucked between Jaemin’s shoulder and the bed. It’s just— there. No pressure, Jaemin knows. If he’s not ready then Donghyuck won’t push him. He’s always so good like that, so gentle, but Jaemin just wishes he would push. Peel him up like a sticker. Get him to stop sulking, or whatever this is; he _can_ sit up, but he isn’t sure he feels like it, and god, it’s a horrible thought. Donghyuck is the kind of good that belongs in an actual hospital treating actual patients, not hedonistic criminals like Jaemin, and after all that Donghyuck and Renjun have done—giving him a new body, a new _life_ when his should have ended—the least that Jaemin can do is sit up and be grateful. 

He feels terrible. 

He sucks on his teeth for a moment to fill up his mouth with enough spit that the words don’t shrivel up when he speaks. He manages to choke out, “give me a minute,” but it still comes out a little gravelly. 

Donghyuck doesn’t move and Jaemin is grateful. The hand is soothing in an odd way. Solid, but not metal, not like the newfound heaviness in his legs—titanium femur, he finds out. His hip had taken a beating too but not enough to warrant a complete replacement. Donghyuck says that it will most likely cause him problems down the line though, so he might end up needing that hip anyway. 

Jaemin steadies his breathing and grounds himself with the feeling of Donghyuck’s palm. Sitting up for the first time in a month is cruel on every nerve and bone, but even more so when he cannot see. It’s like he’s discovering distance for the first time. Reminds him of back when Jeno tried to teach him maths, about mechanics, and those projectile equations. He readies himself to move, his spine bending like one of those parabolas in Jeno’s textbook, and he sits up. All the blood in his body is forced downward with momentum and Jaemin feels nauseous and— he’s throwing up. He’s not even sure where until he feels a wet warmth seep through his blanket. 

“Wanna lay back down,” he says when his mouth has emptied. He moves—a mistake—but this time Donghyuck keeps that steadying pressure on his back. 

“What, and choke to death on your own vomit? After all I’ve done for you,” he tuts and soothes Jaemin through his next retch. Jaemin is sure that if he still had eyes he would be throwing up hard enough to see stars. 

When he’s calmed, Donghyuck inches back the blanket and throws it on… the floor? The floor. Jaemin can hear the slop of it against the concrete and cringes. 

The cold hits him suddenly, a biting chill that Jaemin hasn’t felt in over a month. He shudders and shudders, and now he’s shivering, his entire body dancing as though set alight, and he can’t stop. It’s both beautiful and terrible. There is nothing left in his stomach to throw up but now his muscles throb and he wants to be warm again. 

He keeps shivering until Donghyuck slips something over his head. It sits bunched up around his neck until Jaemin realises, _oh,_ it’s a sweater. He struggles to slip his shaky arms through the holes but once he does, he’s warm. The fabric is soft against his skin and smells homely, like cotton and vanilla and… Jeno? Faintly Jeno. Jaemin breathes in deep and wishes for the smell to never leave his lungs. 

Then, he feels something new pressing against his beck. He startles slightly, edges forward, and the action _burns._ He gasps, and that hurts too, salt against the wounds on his throat. There should be tears in his eyes. 

“I—sorry.” Donghyuck withdraws whatever it was and takes an audible breath. “I was— uh. Pillows. To help you sit up.”

Jaemin blinks, feels a bit ridiculous. “Oh. I see. Well, I don’t.” Why did he say that? Feels even worse. He swallows and settles with, “Yeah.” 

Donghyuck tucks the pillows back behind him, and Jaemin wonders why he jumped so suddenly; the pillows are so fluffy. The one he’s been using for the past month is sunken in and moulded to the shape of his head. These new ones are god-sent. He rests back against them and lets his body get used to the new sensation. Sitting at a slant is less dizzying than upright like before, and Jaemin almost thinks he could get used to this. 

He hears Donghyuck back away from him, and then there’s just silence. The rustle of fabric as Jaemin shifts his head. Donghyuck’s steady breathing. 

“I’ll, uh,” he starts, and then stops, recollects himself. “Should I get Jeno? Renjun? This is the longest you’ve been awake for a while.”

Jaemin thinks for a bit and then shakes his head. “Don’t think I could deal with that many people. I’d get a headache.” 

Donghyuck snorts. “Fair enough. Would you like me to leave, then? Peace and quiet?” 

“No, you can stay. You’re good.”

A breath. “Oh. Alright. Um, is there anything you need?” 

“Would you brush my teeth for me?”

“Sure. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Jaemin smiles at the memory. The first and last time he got drunk, not even an hour after he first turned eighteen. “You poor soul, all you ever do is take care of me. I’m just a toddler and Donghyuckie hyung is so _good_ to me.”

Jaemin doesn’t need to see to know the way Donghyuck’s face screws up. He’s got it memorised after years of knowing each other, his cherub lip curled back and eyes cast low in disgust. He wishes he could see it, though.

“You’re terrible, Na,” Donghyuck says on a sigh. “Now shut your pretty mouth, you still smell like sick.” 

Jaemin recovers in parts. He doesn’t black out as much these days, and once Jaemin learns that even the simple act of deep breathing won’t overwhelm his body, he starts to experiment. Small things at first, like wiggling his toes and clenching his fists to keep the blood flowing, then progressing to scribbling on notepads with a pen, unsure of _what_ he’s scribbling, just needing to hold something in his hand. 

Then, he stops sleeping. He tells himself that it’s an experiment too, to see how long he can stay awake. Donghyuck doesn’t find out, but Renjun does. He never seems to sleep these days either, forever on his computer, working on something that he refuses to divulge. 

Renjun is a good no-sleep partner for a day or so until Jaemin learns that the less one sleeps the more they begin to feel like they’re dreaming. He starts sleeping voluntarily, then. Renjun never does. 

It snows a month after Jaemin first wakes up. It’s only midway through winter and the makeshift hospital room seeps cold from under the garage doors. Jaemin can feel it even under the layers they bundle him with, and now that shivering doesn’t hurt anymore, he wants nothing more than to step outside and _feel._ Walking is easier too; he can manage to get himself to the bathroom and back with little difficulty. 

He has also learnt to navigate this space they’ve put him in—the garage under Jeno’s abandoned apartment building, Jaemin comes to learn. Concrete floors and crumbling support pillars and several of Jeno’s favourite cars parked neatly up against a wall. There’s enough space for all of Donghyuck’s equipment, and the plug sockets work, surprisingly, and are hardy enough to cater to Renjun’s needs. It’s not exactly a home or a hospital, it’s a workspace, and for the past couple of months Jaemin was something to be worked upon. A spool of yarn steadily wound back into shape. He’s still coming apart at the seams, still can’t _see,_ but he manages. He has to. Jeno had tried to get him a cane to help ease the burden on his body and lack of sight, but he’d thrown a fit, and so he forces himself to push through the subtle burn in each step, to memorise the layout of the room down to the very candy wrapper tucked under the leg of the bed that Jisung had left behind the one time he came to visit. 

It’s strange how his world has become so small all of a sudden. Racing had been all about pushing limits but now it seems that’s all that defines him. Four people, four walls. Things like light and weather don’t even occur to him. This ecosystem is simple and sterile. 

But, the snow. Once Jeno tells him about it he can’t get it out of his mind. It’s all he pictures when he falls asleep, the dark, empty canvas of his dreams all of a sudden filled with white. It’s almost overwhelming how much he _wants._ Wonders if it’s because of the way Jeno describes it. His words are never flowery or excessive, they just—are. And it makes Jaemin want to _be,_ too. 

He tells Jeno as much when he next comes to visit. His physical therapy sessions progress almost painfully, but Jeno’s presence there is a balm and Jaemin clings to the distant echo of his voice as he hovers in the background. He’s always hovering these days. Too quiet at times when all that Jaemin longs for is the sound of his voice, an awareness of his presence. He doesn’t dare to even touch Jaemin, not yet, but Jaemin wishes that he would. 

So, when Jaemin asks him again about the snow, he knows that they can’t put it off any longer.

“Should I get Donghyuck?” Jeno asks.

Jaemin very nearly reaches across the space between them to shake Jeno like a snowglobe, but he holds back. Sits on his hands. It’s Jeno that will have to make the first move. 

Instead, he settles for a sigh.

“Jeno, really. Do you _want_ to get Donghyuck?” An answering silence. “Exactly. It’s just a short walk, Jen, I’m sure we can manage. You can even help if you want. I’ve seen those arms of yours, what other reason would you have for all that muscle?” 

Jeno snorts. “All for you, Jaemin,” he says in jest but the way Jaemin’s heart lurches doesn’t feel trivial at all. It makes him swallow and pause.

The act of wanting is so tiresome, these days. It seems that it’s all he is capable of doing. He wants so much that he is sick with it.

There is a lot that Jaemin could say in return, something to go along with the current, the push and pull of light conversation, but Jaemin is— he is tired. He is tired, and he is wanting. They’re both sat on the edge of Jaemin’s bed with room enough for Jesus and all twelve disciples between them. Jaemin will not close the space. He is aware of Jeno’s presence, aware of the distance, the metre and centimetres and millimetres, all the way down to the very pixels of matter, but he has long since lost the right to _take._

Instead, Jaemin offers. Slips a hand from under his thighs and holds it out, palm turned up, resting on his knee. 

There is silence. What is Jeno thinking? If only he could see his face. 

Then, a rustle of fabric. The mattress recovering from the loss of extra weight. Three solid footsteps on the concrete, and Jaemin can feel that Jeno is right in front of him, can feel the sudden rush of body heat. Can smell the sourness of car metal and the twang of his cologne. 

Jaemin tenses and his fingers go rigid in anticipation for the touch that never comes. Why is he taking so long? Jaemin’s fingers curl in on themselves, a wilted flower. 

“Are you teasing me?” he asks with a dejected laugh. “Gonna scare me, Jeno?”

“Should I?” Jeno replies, and— oh, he’s closer than Jaemin originally thought. His voice sounds deeper like this. Jaemin’s fingers curl into a loose fist. Then, Jeno’s tone changes, an uncharacteristic seriousness seeping into the words. “I wouldn’t do that. I was… waiting.”

Jaemin frowns and tilts his head up, searching. “For what?” 

“You.” He says it with a finality, as if that is all there is: _you._ “I won’t actually scare you. What if I did and you kicked me in the balls or something?”

Jaemin snickers. “I’d have to take a raincheck on that. Don’t think I have the strength.” More silence. Then, “Hey, Jeno?”

“Yes?”  
  
He only allows himself a second to wonder if it’s selfish before saying, “Touch me.”

Jeno audibly swallows and then pauses as though waiting for Jaemin to take the words back. He doesn’t. Can’t. These words are so simple but so heavy with want, and Jaemin doesn’t have the strength to hold them inside of him any longer. These are words that cannot be taken back, only broken. He is sure that he could reach out and dig his fingers into them, pull them apart and let them crumble to the floor, but he doesn’t. These are Jeno’s words now and he may do with them as he pleases. 

Another moment passes until Jeno gives his answer. “Alright,” he says. “Alright. I… I’m going to touch you now, okay?” 

Jaemin smiles. “Okay, Jeno.” 

His hand is still curled into a loose fist and he doesn’t have the time to straighten it out before he feels the first touch of Jeno’s fingers, and then the fist tightens, uncut nails printing bloodied crescents into his palms. Jeno’s touch is light but he doesn’t pull away, just lets it rest there as Jaemin acclimatises. Then he begins to unfurl Jaemin’s hand, finger by finger, petal by petal, so soft that Jaemin could cry. When Jeno is done he doesn’t pull away, instead threading their fingers together so they should not be parted for even a second. 

Jaemin rises to his feet on shaky limbs and Jeno squeezes their hands together in an offering of energy. It pulls a laugh out of him and gives him enough distraction to ignore the distant ache in his body so he can begin to walk.

They reach the doors of the garage without hazard, Jeno letting him go for only a minute to unlock the door and wrestle it open. It slides on rusty hinges and Jaemin feels the sound all the way in his gums. He fights back the urge to squeeze his hands into fists again and waits for Jeno to twine their hands back together when he first feels it. The breeze. Minty with ice, and biting. Alive. 

He doesn’t wait to step outside. 

The ground crunches underfoot and the uneven texture is so unfamiliar compared to the smooth concrete he has grown used to, but Jaemin prefers this. It’s more real. 

“The snow hasn’t settled,” Jeno says when Jaemin’s foot slides across the gravel. “It’ll start snowing soon, though. Probably.”

“Thank you, weatherman. Now tell me. What does the sky look like right now?”

Silence. The distant sound of train tracks. Jeno’s answer of, “Nothing. Like a sheet of paper.”

It’s easy to picture. Blank. Jaemin finds that he rather likes it; he’s never been much of an artist, anyway. 

“So you think it’s going to snow?” he asks. 

Jeno hums. “Fifty percent chance, I’d say.”

“Yeah? Flip a coin.”

“That’s not how it works. That’s not how anything works.”

But Jaemin doesn’t care. He turns his face to the sky and says, “Heads it snows.”

When it comes to things like this, nothing ever seems to work with Jaemin either, so Jeno relents and takes out a coin. Jaemin can hear the tinny spin of it as Jeno tosses it in the air. 

Jaemin holds his breath and waits for the answer. Knows it doesn’t matter, not really, but Jaemin likes to think there’s quiet magic in it, that perhaps the sky will open its eyes and see that there are still people left who hope.

And oh, how Jaemin has hoped. 

He used to like it when Donghyuck got like this—in doctor mode, all authoritative and commanding. Used to find it sexy. Now it’s just obnoxious. But that’s not Donghyuck’s fault, never Donghyuck’s fault. He’s always been so good to Jaemin, the kind of good that a person like Jaemin doesn’t deserve.

It’s the kind of good that belongs outside of this garage and in an actual hospital, surrounded by other objectively good people, who can afford to pay Donghyuck back for his goodwill. And Jaemin can’t pay Donghyuck back, least not with money. He isn’t sure what he would give to make them even again. Nothing he _could_ give, he thinks, but his life. That probably goes against the Hippocratic oath, though. 

So if it’s not Donghyuck’s fault then it must be Jaemin’s. It’s the only logical conclusion, not that there’s any logic to what he’s feeling. At times he struggles to even put a name to it. There just—is. A tiredness. A tiredness of being tired. It loops round and round and Jaemin grows dizzy and sick and fuck, he just wants out of here! He wants to go to outer space and see the sun. He wants to eat cheese and drink wine on the moon. He _wants._ And that is part of the problem: his restlessness and his want and the fact that Jeno is five floors above him right now and Jaemin can’t go up there and touch him.

He nearly whines. 

“Just—outside. Around the block? Okay, not the block, maybe just down the road, or… _to_ the road.” Donghyuck continues to ignore him and the irritation prickles under Jaemin’s skin. “Let me _out_ Donghyuck, fucks sake, I can handle the outside world! I grew up in it, you know. And if you won’t let me outside then at least take me upstairs.”

“Oh, I see what this is about. You just want Jeno.”

“Jeno’s _apartment,”_ he says. “It’s gross in here. I feel like I’m going to grow mould or something.”

Donghyuck snickers. “Jeno literally lives in a decaying building, what did you expect? Have you _seen_ his shower? I’m surprised the water’s not black.”

“Gross.” Then, an idea. He turns in the general direction of Donghyuck and attempts his most angelic face to ask, “Will you bathe me, Hyuckie?” 

“I— what?”

“If you’re so worried about me tripping and falling, will you bathe me? You don’t even have to take me to the shower, I can strip right here and you can just towel me off.” He makes a show of grasping the hem of his shirt and lifting it up so it rides over the smooth planes of his stomach.

With the way Donghyuck makes a strangled sound he knows it worked. 

“You’re— _Na Jaemin.”_

Jaemin smiles. “I am. Very clever, Hyuckie.”

Donghyuck grinds his teeth. “You collapsed. _Collapsed!_ I have no idea what you or Jeno were thinking but you’re not getting out until I say so, which—considering you’re already healing three times as quick as you otherwise would have, without my help—is still a way off. Kids have no patience these days. Think of what it would’ve been like ten years ago. You could’ve _died,_ Jaemin.” Donghyuck lets out a pained sigh and Jaemin can almost picture him shaking his head, messy bangs falling over his clouded eyes. “So impatient. You’re not getting anything ever again, not as long as I live.”

Jaemin’s smile falters. “We were just waiting for the snow,” he says, and wonders at how much he let himself bleed into the words. 

“The snow.” There’s disbelief in Donghyuck’s voice. Something else entirely under the surface. “Oh, Jaemin-ah. You fool.”

“What?”

“It— nothing. It’s nothing.” Jaemin can tell it’s a lie but he lets Donghyuck brush it off anyway. Won’t push him any further. “Should I get Jeno, then?”

Jaemin brightens up. “You’re the doctor, you tell me.” 

Donghyuck sighs. “Be right back.” 

The wait isn’t long but to Jaemin each second draws out to a minute. He has to remind himself that Donghyuck has to climb five flights of stairs and that it’s ten both ways. Even when Jaemin was fit he would find himself taking a break at the very top. It’s part of the reason why they never met in Jeno’s apartment as often as they would have liked. Renjun always said he would work on fixing up the elevators, but he never got around to it. There was always something more important. 

Jeno should have been used to the stairs, but when he comes down he’s panting. Jaemin can picture him flushed pink, chest rising and falling, hair wet against his forehead. He smiles. 

“What, did you run here?” he asks just to tease. Jeno doesn’t answer and that’s when Jaemin knows. He barks out a laugh. “Really? You actually ran? What did Donghyuck say?”

“He didn’t. Collapsed on the couch and went to sleep like two seconds after he walked in.”

“Ah, Donghyuckie. He works too hard.”

There’s a lull in the conversation and Jaemin listens as Jeno reins in his breathing, still jagged and sporadic from his sprint. The knowledge that Jeno was so eager to see him makes Jaemin powerful. He could have climbed those stairs right up to the top of the world. 

“Did you want anything?” Jeno asks.

“No, just you,” Jaemin says and takes pride in the way Jeno’s breath hitches. “Well, that and a favour.”

“Yeah?”

“Would you help me wash my hair? I asked Donghyuck but he was a bastard about it, poor boy.” Donghyuck can hardly imagine what he’s going to be billed after all of this is finished. Can you put a price on emotional trauma?

Jaemin half expects Jeno to flounder. His breath does catch but only for a moment, and when he answers his voice is far more steady than Jaemin would have expected.

“Of course,” he says, and Jaemin can almost hear the smile in his voice. Jeno is too good. “Bucket wash?”

“Unless you can carry me up five flights of stairs.”

“Right. I’ll go fill up the bucket then.”

Jaemin almost says that Jeno doesn’t need to narrate everything he does, but he finds that he takes unexpected comfort in it. He listens as Jeno pads across the car park in his flimsy sandals to the water pipes, a makeshift area they rigged up after Renjun spent one too many nights stuck on the floor by Jaemin’s bed, typing away at his laptop and refusing to move upstairs. The pipes creak and groan but soon there is the fresh sound of water filling up a bucket. It almost makes Jaemin’s mouth water.

As he waits for Jeno to come back, Jaemin sits up in bed and slides his shirt off. He hears some of the water suddenly slosh to the floor and can’t help the laughter that splutters out of him.

“Easy there,” he chides and no more water spills to the floor. Ah, steady, reliable Jeno. Jaemin would praise him again if not for the fact that he would spill more water and then Jaemin would have to wait again for him to refill the bucket. 

“The water’s quite cold. Would you like to feel it first?” Jeno asks once he’s close enough. The sound of the bucket placed on the ground by his feet. Jaemin nods and holds out his hand. 

Jeno takes Jaemin’s hand and guides it to the water. He has to bend ever so slightly to reach the bucket but it’s nothing that hurts, almost like one of the exercises that he’s been doing with Donghyuck in therapy. Then comes the feeling of the water. Cold, as Jeno had said, but not the kind of cold Jaemin had been picturing, not the kind that makes him feel blue. This cold feels like water from a snowmelt lake at the base of a mountain, clear and glittery, almost chocolate-box. The kind of cold that makes him yearn. 

“It’s fine,” Jaemin says. He straightens his back and slides off the bed. The moment that his feet touch the ground Jeno’s grip on his hand tightens. “You can’t wash my hair in bed, can you?” 

“Well— no. But you’ll tell me if you feel dizzy.”

It’s not a question and Jaemin doesn’t answer. He lets his hand slip from Jeno’s so he can bend down to pick up the bucket, and then they migrate to another section of the garage out of the way of Donghyuck’s equipment and electrical sockets. Jaemin sits on the ground aided by one of Jeno’s steady hands on the small of his back, and they get to work. 

Jaemin has to lean back propped up on his arms but he finds that the position doesn’t hurt. If anything, his arms are stronger now. They bear his weight well and Jaemin relaxes in position as Jeno wets his hair with a cup full of water. It drips down the back of his neck and soaks into the hem of his sweatpants, but Jaemin is too relieved to care.

The sound of a bottle cap flipping open and shampoo poured out into the palm of a hand. Jeno pauses behind him. 

“I’m going to shampoo your hair now,” he says.

“No, I thought you were going to eat it?” Jaemin can hear Jeno’s eyes roll. “But really, it smells so good. Our Renjun has taste.” 

Jeno smooths the shampoo onto his hair methodically to ensure that every surface is covered before he begins to work it in. His nails are always trimmed and filed and Jaemin revels in the blunt scrape of them against his scalp, in the tingle they leave behind. 

Some of the lather foams over his ears and muffles his hearing but Jaemin doesn’t want to chance brushing it away lest his one arm buckles under his weight; if he were to collapse now not only would Donghyuck have his head but Jeno would never forgive himself. 

Jeno says something behind him but between the scalp massage and foam in his ear, Jaemin struggles to hear. Only when Jeno rinses out the lather do his ears clear. 

“What did you say before?” Jaemin asks. Jeno’s hands are back in his hair, teasing out tangles and working through some conditioner. His hair has been getting long these days. It was trimmed before, back when Donghyuck was still fixing him up, but that was months ago. Since then it has become unruly and Jaemin has taken to putting it in a messy ponytail and pinning back flyaways with clips. 

At his question, Jeno pauses. “You didn’t hear me?”

“There was foam in my ear.”

“Oh.” His fingers don’t move again, still stuck there as though contemplating. Jaemin allows him to take his time, even as his skin begins to pebble and he bites his tongue to suppress a shudder. Eventually Jeno settles for saying, “It wasn’t important.” 

But it must be, Jaemin thinks. It must be, because Jeno’s voice is quiet, because his fingers are still threaded through Jaemin’s hair. Earlier he had let Donghyuck off the hook for his little lie but there is something about Jeno’s that makes Jaemin want to press. A finger against a flowering bruise just to hear him hiss. 

Jaemin strains to turn over his shoulder, looking back at where Jeno is perched behind him. There’s no use in the action—he cannot see regardless—but it’s what he would do anyway. Face Jeno instead of letting him walk away. 

His neck hurts from the exertion of holding himself in such a way, but he manages to level his voice as far as possible. “Are you sure?” he asks. “If you’ll tell me, I’ll listen. I’ll always listen. You know that.”

The fingers weave tighter through his hair. Not hurting, just tighter. The light scrape of nails on skin.

“It’s embarrassing,” Jeno says.

“And I’m sure I’ll be flattered anyway.” 

Jaemin faces forward again to give Jeno privacy. A shuddery breath comes from behind him, and then Jeno starts on his hair again, working through the knots and lathering especially oily patches only to wash it away with a fresh cup of water, the now-warmed water like honey milk on his skin. 

A memory swims to the surface of his mind unbidden. A cold marble bath and wrinkled hands in his hair, across his forehead. Lullaby hymns. Another memory in the kitchen sink with soap suds floating like clouds in the air. Balmy laughter. A mother’s touch.

Somewhere, far beyond the reason of sinew and flesh, Jaemin _aches._

“I miss the way you used to smell,” someone says. Jaemin hears the words as if through water. He is so far down that he cannot feel his body. This is the place that sunlight doesn’t reach. “I miss… you. Renjun’s shampoo is nice but it’s too floral and you’ve never smelt like flowers. You just smelt like Jaemin.”

The words ripple all around him, salted warmth in the deep blue sea, and _oh._ It’s Jeno. Of course it’s Jeno. Jaemin smiles.

“I miss it too,” he says, and all of a sudden feels inexplicably emotional about the smell of shampoo. The hurt doesn’t bring him back, not entirely, but it lets him feel a bit clearer. He is so very used to sadness, these days. To missing things. “Will you bring it for me next time?”

“Of course.”  
  
A flash of cold, more water over his head. The hand in his hair is still gentle. It’s the only reason that Jaemin doesn’t drown. 

New Years comes and Jeno doesn’t let go. He has Jaemin in the palm of his hand and a bottle of beer in the other, and Jaemin only knows because he hears the fireworks fizzle through the last second of countdown and then Jeno’s leaning in, and Jaemin can feel everything. His hands shaking as they reach up and cup Jaemin’s cheeks. The wet mouth of the beer bottle brushing over his skin. Music, all the way in his bones, on his lips as Jeno asks _Can I kiss you?_ and Jaemin doesn’t even hesitate. They go back inside, and make fireworks of their own. 

It’s midnight and Jaemin trips over something. He knows logically that the ground can’t be too far but the fall seems to last forever. His stomach drops before he does, and it feels like the race track all over again, like the adrenaline high of centripetal force pressing him tight against the car seat.

He hits the ground and scrapes everything. His knees throb and his metal joints clink beneath skin as they whine with the impact. And there’s— something else? He knows the layout of the garage by now and Donghyuck is always careful to tuck away excess wires to prevent accidents such as this. But this, whatever he tripped on, is not made of metal or wire. It’s warm beneath him and it shifts, groans in pain, and smells like flowers and lakewater. Jaemin sighs.

“Renjun? What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Well, I _was_ sleeping,” Renjun replies, and Jaemin can feel the words vibrate through his body. “And now I am being smothered. You’re heavy, get off.”

“No. Hurts to move,” Jaemin says and feels Renjun stiffen beneath him. He doesn’t take the time to feel bad about it; it _does_ hurt to move, especially now that he’s just taken a tumble, more impact against his body than he’s had in months, and he would rather lay here on the ground than struggle to get back up. “If I’m that heavy then just push me off.”

“Ugh, give me a minute.” 

Jaemin knows he should at least make something of an effort to move. It’s what all of his physical therapy has been about anyway—movement and strength and getting up, moving forward, moving _on._ Moving off Renjun’s pancaked body. If Donghyuck could see them now, splayed out on the floor by the foot of Jaemin’s bed, he would strangle them both. 

“If you tell Donghyuck about this I’ll tell him that you were sleeping on the floor again,” Jaemin says and hopes that it comes out like a threat, but knows that it’s weak and diluted with weariness. 

Renjun snorts. “I actually have permission not to sleep, thank you very much. Not that I’d need it, anyway.” 

“Oh? And what could possibly be so important that even the honourable Donghyuck would let you go slowly mad with sleep deprivation?”

Below him, Renjun goes very still. Jaemin can still feel him, his warmth, the shudder of his heart through the thin layers of fabric, but it’s as though everything else about him goes quiet. It’s unsettling and Jaemin gives a forced laugh.

“What, are we going to do the no-sleep challenge again? Really, you should be sleeping, Renjun-ah. See, I’m even being so generous as to act as your blanket for the night. Don’t waste a golden opportunity like this, it might not come again!” 

Renjun eases up, but only slightly. “I have work to finish. You should be in bed.”

“Oh, you were working? With your eyes shut? Oh, our talented Renjun-ah.” 

“Shut up. It’s _important.”_

“What could be so important, hm?”

He doesn’t get an answer. Renjun stiffens up again and oh, how things have changed. Jaemin’s teasing would always work to settle Renjun or, at least, turn his mind from whatever was troubling him. It seems now that everything Jaemin seems to say is wrong. It doesn’t help that he cannot read Renjun’s face.

He misses that face so much. He misses _everything_ so much.

One day, when Renjun has moved on from his fascination with androids and bionics, perhaps he will invent a device that could turn back time, or something that could take all of this pain and mold it into something useful. He’s tired of being stuck here, tied down by his own body and his own pain.

Ah. Jaemin’s kind of tying down Renjun too, huh?

With a flicker of strength kindled by his guilt, Jaemin rolls off Renjun enough that he’d be able to free himself if he chose to. They’re still touching, Jaemin half-draped over him so he can feel that Renjun’s there and that he’s solid, not a strange gaseous consciousness that Jaemin dreamt up in a moment of delirium. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Renjun doesn’t move out from underneath him. Jaemin begins to think that perhaps he’s fallen asleep again, and doesn’t dare speak or move in fear of waking him up. He deserves all the sleep he can get. 

Jaemin isn’t quite comfortable, but he makes do. It’s nice to have a warm body so close. He misses it these days, the single hospital bed Donghyuck must have jacked from god knows where not even big enough to fit Renjun’s laptop in the space besides Jaemin’s body, let alone a fully grown boy. Sometimes there’s a hand that holds him while he sleeps, and other times there are kisses pressed to the hollow of his throat or his forehead, but there isn’t warmth. Not like this. 

He resists the urge to snuggle even closer. Reminds himself that he cannot _take,_ not more than he already has. And this is fine, Jaemin thinks. It has to be.

It has to be. 

They give him eyes in spring. _Custom made,_ Renjun says as he pins Jaemin against the bed while he thrashes, the pain so intense he can feel his brain writhe. It never quite goes away, but Jaemin learns to live with it. He has to. He learns to live with the sounds too, the mechanical whirr like a camera as his lenses adjust to the light and distance, and as he tries to sleep that same night, he learns that his eyes glow blue. They’d been dark before, so dark they swallowed up the light, but now they’re blue.

Blue.

 _Like the sky,_ Jeno says. _Like what it used to look like before._

The eyes take some getting used to. His depth of vision changes, like looking through a fishbowl, the edges of his sight creeping inward, pinwheeling, all things blown to new proportions of definition. He can see the shifts in light and weather, the freckled pores on Jeno’s nose, the vessels in Renjun’s tired eyes. He can see between the frames of moments. No longer does he read time in seconds but in slides of negative, in reels of film that press against the back of his eyelids. It’s so much, and it doesn’t feel real, and part of Jaemin knows that it isn’t. Real is flesh and blood, is RNA and DNA and stone-skip sequences of amino acids; Jaemin’s eyes are metal lattice and solar energy. They were once held in Renjun’s hands and hooked up to his computer instead of a brain. They aren’t _real._

And yet, they remake the world. 

The world that had once belonged in Jaemin’s head is now at his fingertips. It is a lesson in trust, to believe what he is seeing. He is fearful of closing his eyes. What if he did and could never open them again? Worse yet, what if he opened them and could no longer see? That would be cruelest of it all. 

But, Jaemin doesn’t need to close his eyes anymore. In the same way that he cannot cry, his eyes no longer get dry. Metal needs to be oiled but it does not need water—does not _want_ water. It would rust and crumble to dust in Jaemin’s eye sockets. That too is strange. All things that are real require water at some level. 

Just because Jaemin cannot cry does not mean that he doesn’t. His nose still tingles and runs. His chest still heaves and his stomach still twists and his entire body shakes with emotion. There has always been so much emotion inside of him but now there’s a new kind of pressure in his chest, an ache that he cannot properly relieve. It has been there from the day he first woke up in the aftermath of the crash to Donghyuck hovering at his side and muttering under his breath, to Renjun sat typing away at his computer as he re-made Jaemin’s eyes, to Jeno weeping softly at the end of his bed. That ache has been there for months, perhaps years, slowly filling every crevice of his body. Now that he’s been broken there are only more spaces left to fill. 

Then Renjun gives him eyes. He fills a small space, and the pressure inside his body increases tenfold, entire atmospheres inside of his lungs.

Renjun gives him eyes, and Jaemin immediately shuts them. He can’t help it. He squeezes them shut to contain the rush of emotions threatening to burst, to hold back the tears that will never come. Falls forward into Jeno’s chest, clutching desperately at his shirt, and he cries, his entire body shuddering, gasping like a fish.

This is what it must have felt like when God made man. 

Some days, Jeno goes racing.

Since the moment Jaemin opened his eyes they have been almost inseparable, Jeno taking to sleeping at the foot of Jaemin’s bed when Donghyuck’s not around, and sometimes even going as far as to park one of his cars as close to Donghyuck’s equipment as he dares and then sleeping in there. It is a marvellous sight to wake up to: Jeno with his face still puffy with sleep, leaning back in the seat of one of his cars. It makes Jaemin miss the road, and that makes him guilty, and then he misses the comfort of Jeno’s warm body. But Jaemin will not keep him chained up in this garage. He knows all too well how waking up to the same four walls can make a person’s world all too small, and that is not something he ever wants for Jeno. Jeno should be free, should feel the grass between his toes, the grit of road under tire. 

So, Jaemin kicks him out. Tells Jeno to go for a ride, to bring Jisung along with him and buy him something nice to eat.

Jeno does. He could never say no.

But Jaemin only discovers that he’s been racing when he comes back with his pockets full of cash. 

“How did you get that?” Jaemin asks, sat in Jeno’s lap in the car, his hands running up Jeno’s sides to where his pockets bulge squarely. There is so much more than what he would get from an entire week’s worth of car repair jobs. Jaemin narrows his eyes and digs his hands into the pockets. Some of the notes are crinkled and muddied, but in the other pocket, Jaemin finds freshly minted, still bank-bound wads. _Winning money._ “Jen, you’ve been racing?”

Jeno looks away, eyelids shuttering a fraction of a millimetre with... guilt? Shame? Is there even a difference between the two? 

“Just today,” Jeno says. “We’re running low on funds and there’s only so much power you can get from solar energy, these days.” 

Jaemin tightens his grip on the crisp banknotes and the paper wrinkles slightly in his hands. There are several questions he could ask. Some of them are angry and some of them hurt. Some, he already knows the answer to. 

He wants to ask: _Jeno. Why didn’t you tell me?_ He wants to say: _Jeno. This isn’t something you need to hide._ He wants to lean forward and kiss him and call him _idiot. Sweetheart, you’re an idiot._

“How much energy am I using?” Jaemin asks, quietly counting the winnings. “It’s not like I’m on life support.”

Jeno goes very still beneath him. “Not anymore,” he says.

Ah. Perhaps it’s not just guilt or shame that makes Jeno’s face close up. Jaemin can collect the raw data, but parsing it, truly understanding it, is something else. 

Since waking up it seems that there is so much that Jaemin no longer understands. 

Jaemin places the cash down on the seat beside them and takes Jeno in his hands instead, cupping his jaw and running his thumb gently over his cheek as if to brush away tears. Jeno’s eyes flutter shut—not guilt, this time, not shame—and he sighs, leaning into the touch like a cat to sunlight. 

The moment is quiet, and this time Jaemin _knows_ that it’s selfish to ask, but he can’t help himself. Exhales a wispy breath, and even more softly, asks, “What did it cost, Jeno?”

Still leaning into Jaemin’s palm, Jeno crooks open an eye. “What do you mean?”  
  
“The bones. The eyes.” Jaemin draws his lower lip into his mouth. The words taste like salt and bile. “Keeping me alive. What did it cost? Time and blood I’m sure, but… what did it _cost?”_

The life in Renjun’s eyes, the steadiness of Donghyuck’s hand, and how much more? Enough energy to power cities, to keep the toaster running long enough to brown bread, but _how much more?_

Jeno studies him with such intensity that Jaemin’s resolve unravels and he looks away. The hand keeping Jeno cradled begins to slip but before it can, Jeno grasps his wrist, a loose vice locking him in place. Jaemin is sure that Jeno can feel his pulse under the callus on his thumb, can feel it quicken when Jeno leans in and smooths a silken kiss over the skin.

Can feel his shudder, his whimper, when Jeno gives his answer of: “Nothing we weren’t willing to pay.” 

Jaemin finds him lying on his belly on the floor of Renjun’s bedroom, nose-deep in one of the fading vintage comics he must have stolen from the box under Renjun’s bed. There’s gum in his mouth, as there always is. Bright green and thick as tar. He smacks it round open-mouthed, spit glossing his lips, and it makes Jaemin wonder when they let this boy get so messy. 

At the sound of his footsteps, Jisung looks up, his face cresting over the top of the comic. His kind features are crumpled and grumbly, but when he sees that it’s Jaemin there, his face softens. He tosses the comic to the side with a bright smile and surges forward to wrap his arms around Jaemin’s legs.

“Hyung!” he gasps, the word pitched with breathlessness. “You’re real, you’re—” he pauses for a moment, looking up at Jaemin with eyes wide and sparkly. “You’re alive.”

Jaemin bends down to a crouch and threads his fingers through Jisung’s hair. Two months ago it had been black as ink, sleek and shiny. Now, it’s bright blue and frazzled with bleach and dye, messy and careless and wholly Jisung. It makes Jaemin’s heart squeeze in his chest. Makes him think about all the things he missed out on these past few months. Things like this, like his own death, and people like Jisung with his new electric blue hair. No wonder he’s shocked.

“I’m alive,” Jaemin says, brushing back Jisung’s bangs with the palm of his hand. “You missed me, huh? And you didn’t come and visit me? Had to wait until Donghyuck released me from my cell?”

Jisung’s face melts into a petulant pout. “Donghyuck said it would make you too excitable. I did come the first week, though! You were so out of it. I brought you candy but you couldn’t eat any solid food so I ate it myself. Sorry.”

Jaemin’s mouth waters. Months on a strict diet of stolen astronaut food and sloppy gruel is enough to make any better man keel over and beg. 

“It wasn’t the contraband stuff, was it?” he asks. Jisung averts his gaze. Jaemin sighs and swallows his hunger. “Oh, this world is so cruel.”

“I tried to bring more later but Donghyuck said he’d kill me, and I’m not Jeno so he probably would’ve. Maybe.”

Jaemin snorts. “He wouldn’t.”

“He’s very scary when he’s holding a scalpel, hyung.” Jisung shivers and curls his arms tighter round Jaemin’s legs. “He knows the location of every vein in the body.” 

“Aw, Jisung-ah, I would’ve woken up if he hurt you. I’m not above fighting him, you know. I once tackled him to the ground with tickles. He went down like a sack of potatoes.”

The tentative smile on Jisung’s face flickers and then snuffs out. Jaemin thinks back on what he said, wondering which part of that could have made Jisung hurt so. He bites his tongue to hold back from saying anything else. Soothes his fingers through Jisung’s hair, watching as his eyebrows knit together in a frown.

“You wouldn’t have woken up,” Jisung says eventually. His voice has lost that initial excitement, his words now weighed with an edge that Jaemin isn’t quite sure how to walk. “I thought you died that day, hyung. I _saw_ you die.” 

Jaemin’s fingers still in Jisung’s hair. “You were there?”

Jaemin feels him nod against his legs. “I saw everything. Saw that car crush you against that wall. They said there was no way you were going to walk out of that. Said the pressure of it squeezed you like a lemon. They made it sound like—” 

“I died.”

Jisung sucks in a shaky breath, “...yeah.”

Jaemin’s eyes shutter.

If he could give enough to turn back time, Jaemin wouldn’t take back the past two months, or his eyes, or relieve himself of any of the pain; Jaemin wouldn’t _win._ No, he’d step off the race track and into the crowd. He’d look for Jisung. He’d be standing at the back with his rugged leather jacket and chewing gum and hair like rainbow gasoline over asphalt. Jaemin would look for him, and take him somewhere far away—take him there and hide him, cover his eyes with the palm of his hand and link their pinkies with the other. 

Jaemin hadn’t seen the impact coming. He’d felt it, of course. There’s no way to avoid feeling half the bones in your body crumpling under the weight of their own mortality. But in the same way that the water’s always colder the more you think about it, Jaemin dived in headfirst. There had been only a split second between realisation and pain, and even less time between that and a month of darkness. 

Jisung, on the other hand, would have watched it play out second by second, frame by frame. He would have seen that car come up behind him just a little bit too fast and too reckless. He would have felt that fear before Jaemin even knew what was happening.

He wonders, briefly, if Jisung had seen his body. The thought almost makes him throw up. 

He swallows the bile rising in his throat and shifts their positions, gently unwrapping Jisung from around his legs to sit fully on the floor. With his hands still in Jisung’s hair, he guides his head into his lap. Jisung traces circles around his knee and Jaemin can feel them tingle their way up his spine. His bones ache distantly but Jaemin pushes back their worries, focusing on the weight of Jisung in his lap, on his warmth.

It grounds him enough that he can speak without fear of his voice breaking. 

“I didn’t die, Jisung-ah. I’m _here._ I’m here, and I’m alive, and I’ve got you… I’ve got you.” 

Jisung’s fingers tremble as they trace those circles round his knee. Jaemin doesn’t need to look down to know that he’s crying. He can feel the heat bloom against his thigh as Jisung’s tears soak into the fabric of his sweatpants. 

If Jaemin had his old eyes, perhaps he would be crying right now. Perhaps his eyes would prickle with heat and his vision would glaze over and blur, Jisung reduced to nothing but a mess of blue sinking to the bottom of his sight. Now he’s afforded no such mercy: lenses track the drip of tears over the bridge of Jisung’s nose; he can see the sway of each fibre of his sweatpants as Jisung’s breath stutters and hiccups. Each detail of his guilt laid out before him, bright and bare. He tears his eyes away and focuses on the square of thin light reflected on Renjun’s wall. 

Jisung’s tears burn through Jaemin’s skin. He doesn’t look down. 

“We should get ice cream,” Jaemin says, leaning over the side of Jeno’s convertible car. They’re parked outside of Renjun and Donghyuck’s building that overlooks an old industrial estate, and in the distance, peeling billboards advertising diners that have long since closed sway in the wind. Jaemin misses those days of neon signs and milkshake booths, of jukeboxes and greasy fries and food that hasn’t been grown in a petri dish. 

Jeno’s got his hands on the wheel as though to keep the car in line despite the fact they’re not moving. He’s always on the edge with Jaemin in the car, and Jaemin can’t blame him, not really, not after the past few months, but the sight of Jeno so tightly wound makes the guilt inside of him burn brighter; he promised himself that he would do whatever it takes to move past the crash, but it seems that no matter what he does, he’s always finding new ways to pay. 

Jeno’s grip on the wheel doesn’t ease up at his suggestion, but his eyes are soft as he turns to Jaemin. “Ice cream?”

“Yep. We haven’t had good food in so _long.”_ Jaemin sighs and leans back in his seat, feet up on the dashboard. He watches out of the corner of his vision as Jeno’s eyes narrow—a small change, almost minute, and he tells himself it’s only out concern for the gravel he’s dropping all over his clean car. He drops his feet anyway. “We deserve a treat.”

Jeno hums and turns back to staring out into the distance. “Not entirely sure ice cream is what Donghyuck would call good food.”

“Hm. But isn’t it what they prescribe after a tonsil removal? A nice scoop of vanilla ice cream for the pain? Let me at your throat, Jeno, and we’ll have our treat in no time.”

Jeno laughs but his eyes grow very wide when Jaemin crosses to straddle his lap. There are the beginnings of a flush in his cheeks, and Jaemin watches as his eyes grow darker, pupils blown wide, and his lips part, the inner flesh soft and red. Jaemin licks his lips. He wants to swallow Jeno whole.

He trails a hand up Jeno’s side to eventually settle on his shoulders to keep balance and to pin Jeno down. Not that he would move, anyway, not unless Jaemin told him to. He’s so good like that, always knowing what Jaemin wants. He doesn’t move even as Jaemin lowers his weight into Jeno’s lap more fully, pressing them closer together. His muscles twitch like he’s about to move, the tendons in his hands glowing bright with tension, but he keeps them by his side. _How good._ Jaemin will have to reward him for that later.

He leans down and brushes their lips together. It’s not exactly a kiss, but even so, Jeno’s lips tremble in the aftermath. Jaemin smiles.

“Do you want this, Jeno? Do you want me?” Jeno’s tongue darts out to lick his lips in what Jaemin knows is a clear _yes,_ but he needs something even clearer. Needs Jeno’s voice. Needs to know everything he wants, and needs to hear how wrecked he is. “You gotta tell me, Jen. _What do you want?”_

It takes a moment for Jeno’s mouth to catch up to his desire. “Want you to kiss me,” he says, and sounds even more ruined than Jaemin had imagined. “Want you to mark me.” 

“Oh, so you _do_ want me to have at your throat?” Jaemin’s eyes flick to the love bites peeking out from where they’re barely concealed beneath Jeno’s collar. Jaemin has already touched every hidden part of Jeno’s body. There’s nowhere left to hide. He bends further and presses a wet kiss to Jeno’s jaw, his throat, the juncture of his shoulder. He stops just above the hem of his collar and looks back up. “Can I?” 

Jeno bares his neck and _whines,_ but it’s not enough, not what Jaemin wants, and he knows that. He slicks up his lips again and says, “please. _Please.”_

“There you go.”

Jaemin wastes no time attaching his lips to Jeno’s neck and to lick a stripe up to his jaw, the salted skin tiding with wet in his wake. He blows hot air over it and Jeno shudders, skin raising. Jaemin sucks, nibbles, drags his teeth to the juncture of his shoulder and bites down, feeling the give of his skin under teeth.

When he pulls back Jeno moves to fist the material of his shirt and tug him in, but his hands are slack with pleasure, and he wouldn’t _dare._ Jaemin almost wants him to. Wants him to take. He deserves it more than anybody. 

The skin at Jeno’s neck prickles red in a crescent where he bit down, and Jaemin watches the blood rush to the surface, taking root where it will bruise a garden of colours. 

This boy is spring, Jaemin thinks. Spring and summer and all things through to winter. Jaemin would give him years if he asked. Thinks that maybe he already has. 

“What else do you want, Jeno? You can have anything.”

Jeno’s eyes are still dazed and caught up in a faraway place but at the sound of Jaemin’s voice he turns, eyes closing like slats of sunlight. “What I want?” His voice is the lag of honey dripping over morning bread. “Can we… ice cream?”

Jaemin pauses. “Ice cream?”

Jeno makes a happy sound and a small smile blooms on his face. “Yeah. Vanilla, as you said.” When Jaemin doesn’t respond he cracks open an eye. “What? You had me, and now I want my ice cream. Or were you just teasing? Give and take, Jaemin-ah. Give and take.” 

Jaemin leans back against the wheel to stare at Jeno with his shirt tugged to the side, hair splayed out, a flush on his cheeks. So ruined, and asking only for ice cream when Jaemin would give him the world. In all these years of knowing him Jaemin should stop being surprised by how good he is, how giving, and yet. 

_And yet._

“Sure,” he says, tamping down the need to ask Jeno to want more, to ask for more, how can you not want more? “Ice cream, if that’s what you want.”

Give and take, he reminds himself. Push and pull, in and out, a shuddery breath. Give, and take. 

They bring Jisung along for the ride and he sits in the back seat, belt pulled taut across his chest, smacking a wad of gum round his mouth. He wrinkles his nose at the sight of Jeno’s neck but doesn’t press any further, too content with the promise of ice cream to cause any trouble.

If it were up to Jaemin, he wouldn’t be causing trouble as it is. This life isn’t for boys like him, boys who _are_ good, who can do good, be good, and Jisung has such potential. He could save lives like Donghyuck or invent like Renjun or fix things like Jeno does, but Jeno has always said that there is so much of Jaemin in him, and that’s what’s scary—looking down in the puddle and seeing the reflection of two faces instead of one. 

Jaemin isn’t good. Not in the legal sense, at least. He races cars that were banned decades ago and uses the roads in ways that have almost got himself killed. He spends money that is washed in blood, and sometimes he doesn’t spend _money_ at all. And yet, Jisung looks up to him. Looks _at_ him through the overhead mirror and grins. There is so much of Jeno in that smile, Jaemin thinks; both of them hurt the same.

As they pull up to the drive-through, Jaemin turns around to Jisung sat in the back. He fights back against the guilt and asks with a watery smile, “What are you gonna order, Jisungie? And don’t say bubblegum. If it’s bubblegum, you’re not getting anything.”

“What’s wrong with bubblegum?” Jisung asks.

“You need to expand your palate!” he cries. “Be adventurous!” But Jisung doesn’t appear to be listening. Jaemin turns back around and sulks into his seat. “Kids these days have no taste.”

“It’s ice cream, hyung, not the end of the world.”

Jaemin squints into the overhead mirror. “You’ve got gum in your mouth. Oh my god Jeno he’s got gum in his mouth and he wants even _more._ One day, Jisung-ah, you’re going to chew so hard your jaw will unhinge and fall off.”

“Can’t wait,” he says, and pointedly blows a bubble so big that Jaemin is surprised it doesn’t shred once it pops. 

Jaemin casts a sidelong look at Jeno and despairs, “This isn’t how we raised him.”

Jeno doesn’t even spare him a glance, too focused on pulling in to the drive-through, but there’s a small smile that tugs at the corner of his lips. “This is _exactly_ how we raised him.”

The drive-through is empty and it only takes them a minute to order and even less time for the ice creams in their hand. Jaemin suspects that they saw them pull up in an old-timey car, Jaemin hanging out the side like he’s trying to jump and Jisung with his hair that glows the colour of Jaemin’s eyes, and they thought, _ah._ Trouble. And they wouldn’t be wrong. 

They sit in the parking lot of the ice cream store and lick away at their treats. The air smells of smog and the sky is still dirty but if Jaemin focuses hard enough on the flavour of vanilla he can almost fool himself into believing it’s summer, full and bright and buttery over his tongue. Summer with a sun that shines the way it did before the skies went grey. He laps up his ice cream and there it is: neon and milkshake, a summer of the movies. Jeno is there right beside him with a white shirt and leather jacket, and Jisung is in the back blowing bubblegum hearts. It’s reckless but it’s romantic, the kind with a capital _R_ that they write about in poetry, and here, they can be anything. Here, they’re not trouble. 

But Jaemin knows it’s only a dream. The sun doesn’t shine the way it did, and they’re still trouble. His ice cream is vanilla but not the right vanilla, not the one that tastes of summer days and nostalgia. This taste is mechanical and broken. 

Everything, these days, is so very _broken._

Once Jeno has finished his ice cream they start the drive back home. It’s a long journey of winding through back alleys and dodging road patrols that would have Jeno’s beloved car confiscated, but they end up dropping Jisung home without hassle. He’s still munching on his cone when he gets out of the car and waves them off with one hand. Jaemin watches him in the rearview mirror as they drive away, zooming in and in the further they get until he turns to an unfocused blue smudge in his vision. 

Jaemin keeps zooming in long after they have driven out of range. He cannot see Jisung anymore so he turns his sights to the world around them, focusing on the horizon, on the outskirts of the city. Skyscrapers that crumble as they drive past. Webs of wires no longer in use. A weather front moving closer, an almost indistinct border between the two shades of grey—high pressure or low pressure, Jaemin doesn’t know the difference anymore. 

He still hasn’t finished his ice cream. It has started melting now, little drops of it running down the wafer and the back of his hand. He lifts his hand to lick it back up but doesn’t move to finish the rest of it, and by the time they reach Jeno’s building half of it has reduced to a puddle in the now-soggy cone. 

Jeno climbs out of the car to unlock the chain-link fence that surrounds the apartments. It’s useless in terms of security but it’s a relic of the past and Jaemin has always found it oddly charming. 

The padlock falls to the floor and the gate swings open with a piercing creak. If Jaemin could drive—if anyone would _let_ him drive—then he would crawl over into the driver’s seat so Jeno wouldn’t have to bother walking back and re-starting the car. The whole process is wholly inefficient, Jaemin thinks, and starts curating a mental list of potential debate points for and against why he _should_ be allowed to drive again, the most convincing being that it ups his sexy potential almost infinitely, and the second most convincing being that he wants to.

But if Jaemin really wanted to—wanted to so badly he couldn’t help himself—then he wouldn’t wait for permission. He wouldn’t shy away from Renjun’s stony face or the worried crease in Jeno’s eyebrows. But these days, Jaemin’s finding other things to want. Things that are more important. 

These days, he’s learning that happiness shouldn’t have to come at a cost.

He decides to finish his ice cream after all. It’s still sloshing around in the cone and Jaemin could have very well thrown it out the window and left it to decay on the side of the road like the rest of the city, but he holds onto it. Occasionally some of the soupy remnants spill over his hand but he laps it up without complaint. 

The ice cream is more warm than anything and reminds him of the teas Renjun keeps stockpiled in his kitchen. Renjun always drinks them hot, so hot that it fogs up his eyes and makes Jaemin wonder how he hasn’t burnt off his taste buds yet, but Jaemin has always taken his warm. It’s something that Renjun says he will never understand. He takes his time choosing the right tea for Jaemin, choosing what he needs in the moment, never what he _wants,_ and then takes even more time brewing and steeping and pouring out into the porcelain tea set he lovingly keeps stowed out of harm’s way. And Jaemin has the audacity to drink it warm. _Warm!_ Sue him. 

A fat drop of vanilla rolls down Jaemin’s wrist, and he licks it up with decisive spite, but the taste is different. It takes a moment, a frown, the slide of it down his throat for Jaemin to realise— _ah._ That’s not vanilla. It’s not warm either, not like tea or half-melted ice cream or anything hazed and summery. No. This is—

Clear. Glittery. The bite of lightning over his tongue. 

Jaemin’s head almost spins with the relief of it.

The sky is darker and he can make out each pencil line as the clouds pattern and swirl in the wind. The clouds are beginning to sink, now; slowly, slowly, one drop then two, and at last, the sky opens its eyes. 

A year’s worth of rain spills down and Jaemin has never seen the world so alive. It’s as though every surface is made of solid water, everything rippling with raindrops, all the grey rendered silver and slick. It’s all so much that for a second he wonders if he’s hallucinating, if the eyes that Renjun made for him weren’t so faultless after all. 

This is static, he thinks. This is scrapcode set adrift, and everything, at last, is unravelling. Jaemin is drowning in truth. 

His clothes are soaked through, oil against his skin, and his body feels like it’s floating on the surface of the sea. He goes numb, offline to everything but the drum of rain. Tilts his head up to the sky and opens his mouth to let it fill with water.

As a child, Jaemin was told that God was in the rain. Now, each mouthful brings him closer to faith. 

He swallows so much that he grows heavy with it. Fills the empty page with ink and picture, and this feeling, this fullness, becomes all that Jaemin knows, all that he can see. There are oceans inside of him. He feels the pull and tug of tide and looks to Jeno standing by the chain-link fence, keeping sentinel. 

If Jaemin looks hard enough inside of himself he knows that Jeno has always been there. This is another truth that he drowns in, one that fills his chest and swallows him whole; Jeno is a marble statue on the dais, he is iron armour behind a wall of glass, and he has always been watching. This time, Jaemin lets himself be seen. 

It’s almost overwhelming. Feels like being dunked in a marble bath in front of a crowd full of lovers, his eyes wide open as he watches the world swim away from him. It’s a feeling that he’s known only once before. His memories of it are blurred shards—candle wax dripping down the altar, the hollow tips of fingers wrinkled with holy water—but in the seconds before Jaemin wakes from a dream, he sees this same image: himself, drowned in holy water, and a face just above the surface, their features torn and rippled. The same face that has always been there. 

Jaemin unbuckles his seat belt, throws open the car door, and takes three long steps across the wet tarmac to cradle that face in his hands. It’s raining so hard that any other time Jaemin would struggle to see, but now, the world has never felt so clear. 

Can see each strand of hair plastered to Jeno’s forehead. The exact hex code of blush on his cheeks. A drop of rain that slides over the bridge of Jeno’s nose and pools in the corner of his mouth. Jaemin leans in and kisses it dry. 

They don’t pull apart. Jaemin never wants to. When he speaks, it’s with his lips pressed up against Jeno’s, coaxing them to follow in step. 

_“Jeno,”_ he says, and feels the way those lips chase after him. “Jeno, it’s raining. Can you believe it?”

Jeno smiles against him and Jaemin’s lips move in a faithful reflection. It is raining, they are smiling, and Jaemin has never been so in love. The truth of it is raw and electric, and there is thunder inside of Jaemin’s heart. _He is in love with Jeno._ How did it take him so long to realise? Jaemin sucks in a breath and tries to muster up the words to tell him but all that comes out is laughter.

He laughs so hard he shakes with it. Leans forward to press his face against Jeno’s shoulder, hands grasping loosely at his shirt, and he’s laughing into Jeno’s skin almost crazed. He’s in love! He’s so stupidly in love that he’s short-circuiting, his body torn open and all of his wires exposed. 

Jeno pulls Jaemin in and holds him against his body as if to keep him from falling apart, but all it does is make Jaemin fall even more. He presses his lips against Jeno’s dewy collarbones and whispers into the skin over and over, _I love you I love you I love you,_ and maybe Jeno knows because then he starts laughing, too, and Jaemin thinks for a long, devastating moment: _oh god, I really do love you._

One day, Jaemin will tell him. It doesn’t need to be now, doesn’t need to be rushed, and even though they do not say it with words Jaemin is sure that Jeno knows. 

His love is in the way he folds their laundry, in the bruises he plants in Jeno’s skin. It is in the poetry they read from scraps of newspapers scavenged from car boot sales, and in the soot they scrape off their burnt breakfast toast. It is in the meetings and partings, in the longing in Jeno’s eyes when Jaemin is finally released from his hospital room in Jeno’s garage only to move five floors up and hole himself away in Jeno’s bedroom for a different kind of healing. 

It is in time. In reassurance. In the trust they weave between them. The knowledge that Jaemin will race again someday, and that it doesn’t matter whether or not he wants Jeno to be there, because Jaemin knows that he will. He will be stood in the crowd front row and centre and every breath of his attention will be focused on Jaemin. Every litre of fear. 

This is what governs their relationship these days: fear and love and legislature that they argue and pass between them in bed, that Jaemin signs into the skin of Jeno’s neck with kisses that bleed through the paper. 

And one day, that fear will dissolve like the sky that thaws with spring rain, and Jaemin will say: hey. Look at yourself in the asphalt puddle. You’re not fucking special. You’ve made mistakes and it’s cost things but you’re learning not to live in debt, not to give so much that you lose sight of who you are. There are two faces in the reflection of the puddle, but only one is yours. Smile a bit. The water’s only two inches deep. Dip your toe in and let the ripples flower around you. The faces are torn but they’re not broken; you know who they are. Hold his hand. Kiss him on the cheek. _Breathe._

**Author's Note:**

> — inspo / vibes from [ode to a nightingale](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44479/ode-to-a-nightingale%22) by john keats, and hallelujah (jeff buckley ver.) +ft. several other movie references sprinkled throughout  
> — the focus of this fic was character & the process of recovery. was not intended to be a comprehensive journey from start to finish, but simply snapshots of moments in the middle. jaemin is still in the process of completing his recovery.  
> — please let me know what you thought! thank you very much for reading + i hope you enjoyed (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡


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